The Latest

April 2025
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Drum roll please- our game is done! Rebecca (of Rebecca’s Radient Realm) and I created a game for our final project, hosted on Twine. We incorperated multiple sounds and designs, as well as a tech-noir themed script. I implore you to go over to Rebecca’s Radient Realm to play our final project!

We did some brainstorming during casual conversation throughout the week, and then sat down on Thursday to get all of our “must have” ideas on paper. I’ve attached a photo of our Google Document here! Once we got working in Twine, some of our ideas moved around and we realized that the story progressed much faster than we thought that it would.

Moving into Twine, I worked on the script while Rebecca figured out how to import audio and images. I first mapped every decision out, as well as how everything would intersect with each other. After that, I just started writing, and everything came together. I’ve attached a very zoomed out image (no spoilers!) of most of our game.

What I learned and how I used it:
1. Creative Writing: this is probably one of the biggest things that I learned in this class, and certainly what I showed off during this project. I’ve always enjoyed analytical writing and feel like I’m good at that, but having to write creatively and as my course character was a struggle for me at the beginning of this semester. Wanting to do that for my final project was something that I didn’t expect, and I doubly didn’t expect to really, really like how it was turning out! I found myself getting excited for the end of the story, and having a lot of fun putting in easter eggs and references to other ds106 things. I can confidently say that I feel like I’ve improved, and I think the story execution is strong (if you don’t feel like it is, please don’t tell me!).
2. Integration of Multimedia Design: While I wasn’t in charge of the audio design for this project, I have gotten better at conceptualizing the use of multiple media formats in projects. With the combination of video and audio projects that I’ve completed this semester, I’m much more able to work in those formats. I’m also more able to make space for them in other projects, which leads to a fuller, more interesting final result.
3. Time and Self Management: Not visually present, my ability to manage my time when it comes to an asynchronous workload has improved. I got much better at estimating how long things would take me, and finding time in my day to work on them.
4. Planning (to a point): I’m not much of a planner when it comes to creative projects. I don’t like to rough draft, and I don’t like to storyboard. This project forced me to do that, at least a little bit, and I think it turned out better because of it. I’m really trying to get better about drafting, but the instant gratification is just so appealing!
5. Domain of One’s Own/Website Organization: Does this count as a skill involved in the project? DOOO was my sworn mortal enemy coming in to this semester, and I think that we now just mutually dislike each other instead of full-blown hate. I find this website difficult and not very intuitive, but I’ve grown used to the interface. Making this blog post now is a breeze!
This week, I worked with Rebecca to come up with the storyboard and plot points for our game (refresher: AI governmental ambassador goes haywire, and its your job to fix it (or not)). We have decided to host it on Twine, and that it won’t revolve around our characters. However, our characters will be involved in the story as background characters or delivering messages to the player. The player also won’t be required to interact as their character, though that could certainly be interesting! We’ve decided to divide the game into chapters, with each section focusing on a different conflict. Chapter I is the beginning, Chapter II will have the bulk of the AI conflict, and Chapter III will be the epilogue. With Twine’s choose-your-own -adventure format, the way that these three sections interact with each other could change drastically depending on how the player chooses to interpret the prompts. We are going to finish the game next week! While I think it will be time consuming to create different narratives that all interact with each other and come back to the same conflict will be time consuming, I don’t anticipate the actual writing to be much of a setback.

And, unlike always, no Daily Creates to share this week!
This week, I worked with Rebecca on the trailer for our final project. I had more to say about it in the blog post dedicated to it, so go check that out!

As always, the daily creates.
Rebecca (of Rebecca’s Radiant Realm) and I are working together on our final project, which will be a choose-your-own-adventure game hosted on Twine. We’re incorperating tech-noir elements and focusing primarily on the prompt regarding a world controlled by AI. I had brought up the idea of a future where all countries’ ambassadors were some form of AI, and we built a script off of that. I plugged it in to a text-to-speech tool and downloaded an mp3 of the script. Then, using favorite place to get free sounds, freesounds.org, I added in some different sounds in order to get a layered background effect. I also used the same site to get sounds to create my glitch effect around the “year.” Once the audio was done, I sent it over to Rebecca so she could work on the video! Overall, I think everything turned out really nice, especially for just the trailer for this project. I’m a little nervous about the amount of writing involved in creating the game, but I’m really excited to start working on it!
Monday, April 7 – New Pet

Tuesday, April 8 – Survival

Thursday, April 10 – Overheard Poetry
I listened to Noir Games, which aired after my group’s radio show. One of the things that struck me most about this show was their use of computereized voices as well as a cloned Dr. Oblivion! I was really impressed that the creators of this show were able to convey such emotion and personality through voices that were clearly not human. I did find it a bit confusing trying to figure out who was talking at a couple of points, but overall I think their format was effective.

The balance of all the voices was great, and it was so neat that stero was used and that different voices were coming from different sides of a table. The sound effects were jarring at first, but ultimately ended up working well with the show.

I haven’t been exposed to any radio-game-shows, but it was very enjoyable! I think it was a clever way to tie in the tech-noir theme and jokes without feeling like they were putting a hat on a hat. Through this class and one of my other classes, I’m realizing how hard it is to engage with futuristic themes without making it feel like a cheesy sci-fi movie, so I commend Noir Games for that.

In terms of listening to my own group’s show, Days of Crime and Roses, I don’t have as much to say. It was a lot of fun to have a somewhat synchronous experience with the other folks in this class, and I love getting feedback, so lurking on Discord was great. I was more critical of things hearing it over the air than I was listening to it on my laptop, but I think more of that has to do with the public setting rather than the actual radio. It was neat to get to go on air with Rebecca and talk about our process a bit!

This post is doubling as my Weekly Sumamry, so as always, The Daily Creates.
Wednesday, April 2 – Door …?

Friday, April 4 – Irony
Radio show week (or really, radio show week two)! Our group could not meet to record episodes together, so instead we focused on creating a cohesive sound with different hosts. I think it went well, scheduling conflicts considered! I recorded my episode directly into Audacity, which made editing a breeze. I added in the show’s intro and then just had to cut out any mistakes I made in favor of the better take. I used the ad I made last week in the middle of the episode to break things up. My episode is embedded here, but for the finished product, please head over to Rebecca’s Radiant Realm!

And, as always, The Daily Creates.
I think the radio show went as good as it could have gone, overall. Since this is an online class, it made sense that my group’s schedules really did not match up. We realized that with the scheduling difficulties, it made the most sense to just edit together our own episode and then create a cohesive theme and idea across all three episodes. I wish we had gotten the chance to record as a group, just since that would have been more fun, but I had a pretty good time by myself as well! I’ve never edited a show with multiple audios before, and I wish I had the ability to do that with this project. I talked a little bit about it in my daily summary, but the overall editing was not that difficult for me. I used a backing track generated from Frank Sinatra’s Days of Wine and Roses via AIVA, and that was about the most challenging part.
Tuesday, March 25 – Image to Image

Friday, March 28 – Boundaries